In earlier posts I talked about salary negotiations and how they shift depending on your personal situation.  I won’t try to recap those comments (click here and you can read them – they’re good!)  but over the past few weeks I’ve been coaching people about some basic language to use when their interviewer pops the question:   “what are you looking for?” Here’s how to answer:

 “I was hoping to hit $60M --  I’m just a bit under that right now.* But I’m sure whatever you think is reasonable will be just fine.”

 *(Note:  don’t be specific with your current salary.  Either you’re worth your new salary or you’re not, but your current salary doesn’t necessarily determine that)

 Then (and here’s the trick), stop talking about it.  Don’t explain, don’t defend your needs.  Change the subject, ask another question, get your interviewer talking about something else.  If your number is reasonable, they’ll hit it.  If you’ve overshot and they like you anyway, they’ll make an offer they can afford and let you decide if you can live with it (the “whatever you think is reasonable” phrase lets them do that without feeling as though they’re insulting you.).  If they didn’t like you, it doesn’t matter what you say– you won’t get the job anyway, even if you underbid yourself.

 “Whatever you think is reasonable” also sets you up as flexible, foreshadowing the great employee you’re going to be.  And in my experience, companies will work extremely hard to meet your goal – everyone wants a new employee to be thrilled with everything about their new job, including their salary.  If they can afford to hit it, they will.

 But what happens if you ask for $60M and they offer you $40M?   I can only think of three scenarios in which someone would do this: 

1: the job simply isn’t at the level it needs to be for you

2: the company is in financial distress

3: someone there lacks integrity and is simply trying to get something for (almost) nothing.

 Any of these scenarios suggest this might be the wrong place to work, don’t you think?  So the answer’s easy:   Say thank you, but no.  Say you’d love to be able to accept, but it seems the job isn’t quite at the level you were hoping, after all.  Say if anything changes you’d love to be reconsidered, but you just can’t quite make ends meet on such a big drop.  Thank them profusely, write a lovely note, and then move on.  This one’s not right.  The next one will be.

Let's Talk About Money

Have you thought about the language you use in meetings?  I met with “Ted” last week (a designer) and we were rehearsing answers to some questions he was likely to hear during an upcoming interview.  I posed one to him:  how are you at defending your work in client meetings?  Ted gave what seemed like a reasonable answer, talking about pushing back, building an airtight case for the work he’d presented, rationalizing his process, and justifying his choices.

We both sat back and laughed, suddenly aware that he came across with a weird combination of petulant and defiant. 

It got me thinking about the language people use in interviews.  Have you ever been in a meeting that was going along just fine and then felt like you lost your connection?  Think about what you actually said just before that happened.  Could your choice of words been the culprit?

I was once having lunch with a creative director candidate, interviewing him for a big, leadership position he really wanted.  Things were going along pretty well; I knew he was talented and he came across smart and confident.  Then I asked him to talk about his management style and he launched into his philosophy:  “I’m actually pretty firm with people,” he said.  “I think everyone needs to know at all times just where they stand.  I’m here to help.  But if they’re not performing, they need to know I’m watching them and if they don’t improve, they’re out.”

I blurted “Well, that sounds just awful.”  I couldn’t help myself – was he kidding??   It doesn’t matter that he was right (people SHOULD know where they stand.  And if they’re not performing, they SHOULD leave the company).  It was his tone.  In his effort to sound strong and in control, he came across like a bully.  How would things have felt if he said this instead: 

“I really believe in giving feedback.  If one of my team members is struggling I want them to know they can come to me and I’ll help them as much as I can.  But if someone’s obviously in over their head, I hate to say it but I think it’s best if I can help them find their way towards something else where they can be more successful.”

Same thought, much better tone.  Who wouldn’t like this guy?

Over the years, we’ve been trained to build arguments, push back, defend, defend, defend.  But don’t you think the world has changed?  Who wants to spend their days locked in argument?  Wouldn’t it be better to take a client by the hand and lead them towards your thinking gently?  Collaboratively?  If you were hiring someone, wouldn’t you want to know they’ll be reasonable and thoughtful with clients and co-workers? 

Ted and I worked out a mantra for his interview the next day.  His job was to keep repeating to himself “flexible, collaborative, eager to help.”  His words and tone through the interview reflected those images and sure enough, the interview, which was supposed to be informational only, ended with an offer for a contract role to try things out. 

You have great strength and confidence (I know you do!)  Combative language, during an interview or, frankly, any other time, can only get in your way.

Non-Violent Communications

It happens quite a bit.   Candidates, trying to strike that oh-so-delicate balance between showing enthusiasm and conveying to future employers they’re a hot commodity, play it just a touch too cool during the courting process.  Take “Joanna” for example:

I’ve been working with Joanna for the few months.  She’s a strong candidate with great, brand-name companies on her resume.  She’s sophisticated, confident, and extremely senior.  She’s also unhappily out of work and getting a touch nervous about her options; there are very few positions open at her level even in great economic times.  But something opened up and very quickly, Joanna became one of two finalists for a leaderly position in a large, well-established company with a slightly less pedigreed name than those in her background.  And that’s when things began to slip.

I told Joanna it was down to two.  I let her know what the company liked about her and what about her made them just a touch nervous.  I encouraged her to be ready for certain questions and have case-studies at hand to address some of the obstacles I expected her to face in her last rounds of interviewing.  Joanna was ready.  But she decided to overlay one more element into the mix – she wanted the company to know just how lucky they’d be to get her.  And she did this by playing hard-to-get. 

First, when we tried to book her in for her last rounds of interviews, she suddenly wasn’t available, openly noting she was interviewing elsewhere.  But when she learned their next meeting opportunity was far in the future, suddenly she made things work – it seemed those “interviews” were really coffee dates with old colleagues and could easily be rescheduled. 

Then, she called the owner of the company directly to let him know she might be heading into final rounds at another company so  her candidacy with them might be short-lived (the not-so-subtle message:  “Act Now Or Else!!).  His response was not what she was looking for:  “Oh … I’m so sorry our timing won’t work out.  We need to finish our process so just let us know if you land somewhere else.”

And a week later, she wrote to the hiring manager, offering to pull herself out of the running for other jobs if they would offer this job to her immediately.  They would avoid a bidding war, she reasoned.

In my experience, none of these strategies ever work. The first is obvious game-playing, the second is a threat and the third shows desperation.  Games, threats, desperation.  Who wants that in a new hire?

My client hired the other guy.  His calm, even demeanor showed up even better in light of Joanna’s activities.  And so will yours.  Be available, be honest, and be patient.  Be yourself.  Don’t play games and that job will come to you.

Games, Threats, Desperation: Tools for a Job-Search?

I interviewed “Ron” just a few days after he was laid off from his associate creative director job at an agency.  He had a great resume – he’d worked at agencies in New York and Chicago, moved here to raise his daughter in his wife’s hometown, and landed a job at a mid-size agency where he wrote half the television spots the agency produced during his 5 years there.  His reel was terrific – full of great ideas and expensive production values. But the agency’s fortunes turned, television was no longer happening and Ron was suddenly out of work.  And 50+, by the way.  Now what?

 When we met, Ron was full of energy.  “I’m an ad guy,” he said.  “I need a job where I can do old-fashioned TV and I’ll be fine.”

 Well, Ron, I hate to break it to you, but I’m not sure where those jobs are anymore.  It’s hard to imagine an agency with the luxury of hiring writers to focus on television when television as a major advertising medium is dropping like a stone in our town.  Production companies have shut down, edit facilities have had layoffs, agencies have shifted their staffs out of broadcast and into other creative tactics.  Ron was out of touch.

 Ron was also easy to talk to and my NY roots came out:  “That’s never going to happen, my friend.  The world has changed.  You’re not going to get that job.”  Ron sat back.  In a few minutes we talked it through and he had his marching orders:  pull together a portfolio that showcases everything but television.  Show that you can write copy (long and short) through collateral pieces, direct mail, any internet sites you’ve been part of.  Show that nothing is beneath you and every creative assignment is an opportunity to do something great. 

 If you want a job, you have to become a great candidate for the jobs that are open, not hold on to the hope that the job you’re best at is simply going to return.  Maybe it will, maybe it won’t.  But you have lots of interests and more skills than you’ve been using – shouldn’t you tap into them?  Let your career adapt to the environment.  You never know where it’ll take you.

 (Status update:  Ron redid his portfolio, presented himself has a unique resource for highly creative collateral, and landed a creative director position at a small agency after a remarkably short search.  Success!)

Hope Is A Four-Letter Word

Thanks so much to all of you who voted to keep this blog going.  Your suggestions were great and I really appreciate that so many of you wrote to let me know you’re using this blog to be better at your current job – how great is that?  So, on we go.

One of my candidates, “Maya” just eagerly accepted a job offer.  She’d been looking for a new position for over a year and finally, the right job opened up.  My client called the second Maya left the interview, letting me know he thought she was perfect.  And Maya echoed the sentiment; “that’s my job,” she announced.  Salary negotiations went fast – everyone wanted this to happen.  My client made a fair offer and Maya accepted the next day and committed to a start date three weeks out.

Maya went in to resign.  She had never done it before, and I coached her through the process (be specific, be gracious, stay on script, offer a reasonable lame duck period, thank everyone profusely, and leave.  Click here for more).  She was ready.

Until her boss started begging her to stay.  They need her, the clients need her, the company will never be the same without her.  Maya stayed on script and stayed firm.  Then her boss asked her to stay just through the end of the year. “If they really want you, they’ll wait,” he said.  “That’s reasonable, isn’t it?”  And for some reason, Maya thought it was.  She called me, explained that she felt responsible and wanted to help her boss out.  She’d start in two months.

Hmmm.  Maybe this was my fault.  Maybe things moved too quickly and Maya felt too confident.  When I reminded her the new company had work that needed to be done right away, she countered with “I’d feel too awful abandoning my client in the middle of this project.”  I went through the obvious:  her first commitment to her new company was her start date and she was reneging on it – how does that make her look?   The new company would find someone else to manage the work in the interim, discovering they wouldn’t need her after all.  And why did she start a job search if she wasn’t ready to make a change?  Maya was firm.  “Just ask them,” she said, “what could it hurt?” 

So I asked.   And my client responded as expected:  “Oh well.  Just let her know to apply again when she’s ready, and we’ll see if we’ve got a job available.”  When I conveyed this to Maya, she bounced back to earth.  She backed up, apologized, gave her three weeks notice and started as originally promised. 

The lesson?  Of course you feel responsible for the work you’re doing right now – that sense of responsibility is one of the reasons you’re such a great candidate now.  But you have to look forward, not back.  When that new job finally materializes, focus your attention on leaving gracefully and quickly, and start your new role not with an apology, but with energy and enthusiasm.  Leave the past behind you.

Resign. And Then ... Leave!